Endnotes
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Blind Alley would be the nearest English equivalent. —B. G. G. ↩
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Wife-of-a-regiment. —B. G. G. ↩
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A great Russian general and a universal military genius and strategist. —B. G. G. ↩
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“Spindle-Shanks! Spindle-Shanks!” —B. G. G. ↩
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“Horse-collar.” —B. G. G. ↩
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“Lenten.” —B. G. G. ↩
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“Made out of matting.” —B. G. G. ↩
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The reference here is to a famous folktale—best known in Pushkin’s version, “The Little Gold Fish.” A fisherman, having caught a little gold fish, is promised the fulfillment of all his wishes for its release. All his demands, instigated by his wife, are granted, beginning with a substitution of a new trough for a broken one, and up to the attainment of rank and wealth; but finally the wife insists upon the fulfillment of a wish so insolent that, upon his return from interviewing his benefactress, the fisherman finds his wife sitting at the same old broken trough, before his former humble hut. —B. G. G. ↩
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A verst is about two-thirds of a mile. —B. G. G. ↩
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Three horses, harnessed abreast. —B. G. G. ↩
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Abrotanum; southern wood. —B. G. G. ↩
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Holy Lake. —B. G. G. ↩
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In midsummer. —B. G. G. ↩
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In English in the original. —B. G. G. ↩
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I.e. There was no family name. The name is Polish, not Russian. ↩